Breaking Things

Not too long ago, Ethan threw Ryan's favorite Planet Hero figure (Zip) from the second story window. It broke. There was upset all around. After things calmed down, I asked Ethan why he threw Zip from the window, and he said he just wanted to see something break. I told him that we could do that in a way that wouldn't involve any one's treasured things and wouldn't hurt any one's feelings. I wasn't sure how that would look, but I knew we could do it.

We stopped at Goodwill one day to check out the books and I found ceramic cups and mugs for ten cents each. I bought them and brought them home. Today we pout a tarp outside the front windows and dropped about a dozen ceramic cups, two mugs, and the remains of one broken bowl we had in the house from the front windows. Ethan was thrilled! He and Ryan had a blast dropping them, retrieving them, and dropping them again.

It was one of those moments when it was just easy to step outside the box. I love those moments.

Travels and Friends

We've been very busy for the past few weeks. We went on a trip which started out in Plymouth, MA at an Unschooler's Camp Out. Where Ryan met a new friend, Mauve, and found she shared his love of sticks.

Ethan, Declan, and Will discovered a sunny place to relax.

I managed to get all the kids in one photo. This was Ryan's fire, but he decided to share. He built lots of fires on this trip and learned "black smithing" which is, apparently, the art of blacking one end of stick so that it can be used to write on rocks.
Next we went to Grammy's cabin in NH. The fun with fire theme continued there. Grammy liked the fires.
Ethan built his first fire with a little help from Ryan and Mimi.
In honor of In spite of it being Learn Nothing Day, Uncle Gareth showed Ethan a how to use a bow and arrows.
Mimi and Ba took the guys for a canoe ride. Of course anyone can ride in the canoe. It's much more challenging to get pulled along in an inner tube.
Ethan spent hours following the ducks in the pond. He quacked at them and they were very accommodating. He got really close to them. After a few hours, he announced that being a duck was great, but without feathers it gets pretty cold even if the lake is warm.

Water always looms large in our family, so went to Jacob Riis Park last Tuesday and caught some gnarly waves.
There were a few wipe outs, but both Ethan and Ryan are ready to go again tomorrow. They say this is the best beach in the world. I have to agree. It has been my favorite beach since childhood.
Amazing water fun continued at Jean's wonderful potluck. The food was yummy and there lots of cool unschoolers. Jean lives mere blocks from the ocean, so naturally, everyone headed there for an afternoon swim. It was a great time to catch up with friends, old and new.
I couldn't resist posting in this photo of Kim. Gotta love a girl who knows what to take to the beach.
Finally, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie on Sunday. Ethan wanted to wait to see it at an Imax with Ryan, all 3 mommies, Aunt Jo, and Uncle Joe. We met up in New Rochelle, NY and while we were walking to the theater, Ethan decided to pause to let Wolverine hang on a tree.
All in all, a very satisfying and refreshing few weeks.

What do you do all day?

Well, I guess that all depends on the day. Most days start with some television: Sponge Bob and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and then there's some DS playing. Both Ethan and Ryan like some quiet time when they wake up. Getting up going anywhere only happens when there's something we really want or have to do and can't put later in the day. After that, some breakfast is in order. Once all that is done, the day is wide open.

We might want to get dressed.

There might be an aluminum foil ice storm.
It could turn out to be day that calls out for body art.
Some days we go to kids' museums, like Kidcity with friends. In this case we went with Gabe and Justin. Ethan likes to keep things in balance.
Ryan is more into getting a different perspective.
We go to festivals, like the Arts and Ideas Festival in New Haven. I'm not sure if this counts as art, ideas, or both.

It's a safe bet that some of our days will include lots of water fun, like going to an indoor water park.

If it's your birthday and you are finally six years old, you could have a celebratory light saber fight with your brother.
Or you just just kick back at Ba's desk and watch some Star Wars videos on YouTube.
There has a been a lot woodchuck trap and release happening lately which looks like this:

This one wasn't the brightest of the 7 we caught. It took him a while to figure out how to get into the woods by going under the plastic fencing.We might even go to see the mayor during his monthly Mayor's Night In and get to sit on the special mayoral couch.
We unschool. Every day is its own adventure.

Unschooling Epistemology

The other day I was trying to make a point while talking with Ethan. I tapped his knee and said, "Did I tap your knee?"

Ethan: "I dunno. Maybe."

Me: " I did Ethan. You *saw* me do it."

Ethan: "Maybe it wasn't you."

Me: "Ethan, really, it was me. I'm the only person who could have done it."

Ethan: "No you're not. Maybe a ghost did it."

Me: "A ghost?"

Ethan: "Right. There's lots of things we don't know and can't prove and you can't say for sure that there aren't ghosts. Maybe one just controlled your hand and tapped my knee."

Me: "Ummm. OK, but I know I did it."

Ethan: "At least you think you know you did."

I love the way his mind works.

April Fools' Day Fun

April 1st is Backwards Day at our house. We take the traditional meal order and change it around. This year, Mimi and Ba decided to take the opportunity to play with our food. So, all the food presented at mealtimes was made from candy or had candy as an ingredient.

Our first meal was desert. It helps to wake up and the day started with a nice helping of dirt (cake) complete with (gummy) worms.


And if you have dirt for breakfast, you have to eat it without benefit of utensils.


After that we ate our dinner. Ba and Mimi love sushi, so we made some for lunch. We invited Ethan and Ryan to come sample our Japanese restaurant. This one fooled them for a second to two, but they soon realized the sushi was krispie treats, gummies, and fruit roll-ups.




Breakfast also required candle light. Ryan really enjoyed that part of lunch, even if he only liked the krispie treat part of the sushi.


The eggs were fluff and lemon jell-o and there was grill cheese sandwiches made from pound cake toast with yellow-colored icing as cheese and laffy-taffy flattened out and rounded into a tomato slice. The mango juice was colored milk. This one didn't fool them at all. We thought they would really like the fluff, but neither of them could stand it. They immediately asked for real eggs instead. Ethan said, "If I eat one more bite of candy I'll barf." Can't have that on a holiday! So we had real eggs for breakfast with real OJ and mango-colored milk chasers.

All this talk of eggs brings me to another egg look alike from the day. During his bath, Ryan asked for a balloon to fill with water. He filled this so full, we couldn't lift it out of the water. Sitting there, in the soapy water, it looks like, well, like an egg.


Such is life on backward day. Nothing is what it seems.

In Other News

After the hurricane, I really wanted a phone. A phone with a cord that attached to the wall of a house that we owned. I wanted a number that said "This is where we live." I wanted an area code that didn't fritz out because the lines were all wonky because the water screwed up everything including the towers that beamed the transmissions into outer space. When we bought this house, I got just that. I got 203-535-0014. It was good. It was comforting. It attached to a wall and had 3 extensions.

It also has a ghost. Her name is Dawn Ricatelli. The phone almost never brought calls from friends, like the one in New Orleans. It brought mostly mechanical voices saying "This is for [pause] Dawn Ricatelli." Sometimes it brought an old woman's voice saying, "Dawnie? Dawnie pick up it's me! Are you there? Call me." I called the voice once, but she wouldn't talk to me. "Stop calling. I don't know you." Or she would whistle. She has a loud piercing whistle. I stopped trying to tell her that Dawn wasn't at this number anymore. I tried to tell her it was just a number to a house with some people she didn't know. It didn't work. Dawn owes a lot of people money. The ghost in the phone number doesn't seem to care. She lets the phone ring and waits for me or the answering machine to handle things for her.

The phone also has a price tag. In this case it costs about $50.00 a month. I am tired of paying money to AT&T. I want $50.00 for movies and books and fun things, so today, I sent Dawn and the number away. Now, I just have a cell phone. It still has a 504 area code. It says, "You are from New Orleans. You are carrying a piece of the past and can use it talk to the future." That's a pretty cool idea. It also says, "You are hip and cutting edge. You are in the 21st century." That's pretty cool, too. Still, it's strange not to have a land line. It's odd to know that no one can call when I'm not home, and wait for the beep, and leave a message for me to find at some future date. Now if they get a message, it's because I haven't charged my cell phone or haven't answered it, or am driving, or ignoring it. Overall though, it means I am free of the ghost of today and can rely on older ghosts which have proven themselves come hell or high water.

Glasses, but not rose-colored

Over the past year I've noticed that Ryan sits very close to the TV, holds the DS close to his face, and when I asked about a picture a few feet away, he said he couldn't read the letters. When he went for his annual checkup last Spring, he didn't want to read the letter chart for the eye exam. The pediatrician suggested we go to a pediatric ophthalmologist. She thought Ryan might feel comfortable having the exam there. That didn't fly at all. Ryan didn't want to go, but said he would check it out. He told the doctor to stay away while he explored the chair and the equipment. She tried to examine him. He kicked her, hard. We left. Even after he calmed down, he had no interest in ever going back. He explained to us that since she was a doctor and since doctors give shots, she was going to give him a shot. We told him that we had never heard of an eye doctor giving a shot during an exam, but he said, "Eye doctor, doctor. Doctor shot. Duh."

When he found out that Esther and I were getting eye exams, he said he would go. We told him he could decide to leave at any time, and asked him to just say he wanted to go instead of kicking the doctor. So, off we went. He brought his DS and played it in the waiting room. He watched me get examined and then hopped up in the chair. I asked the nurse to use the picture chart since he is not as comfortable with letters as he is with pictures, but she refused. He couldn't see anymore than the first line of the chart. The nurse then announced that he would need to get his eyes dilated. I asked if the drops hurt and she said yes. Ryan said, "I'm out of here," but stayed in the chair. Esther and I offered to have him sit on one of our laps or hold our hands, but he didn't to do that. The nurse told us to hold his arms. We refused. She said he has to have this. While she was talking (over him) he was saying that he would do it in few minutes. The nurse was really rude.

Nurse: "You really should just hold him."
Ba: "Ryan do you want to try the drops?"
Ryan: "OK, just wait a minute. Can I have a tissue?"
Ba: "Sure."
Nurse: "He's a child just hold him."
Ba and Mimi in unison: "He's a person."
Nurse: "Right, but he's still a child. He doesn't know-"
Ba and Mimi: "He's a person."
Ryan: "OK, you can do it now. I"m ready now."

He was really brave. The drops stung a lot. The worst part of all this, aside from the clueless nurse, was that the drops didn't get into his left eye and he had to get them again. The second time a different nurse did it. She was patient and attentive to him. She waited until he was ready and stood back and gave him lots of room. She gave all the tissues he wanted and sympathized with him. She brought him Ironman stickers immediately after giving him the drops. He threw them on the floor and called them stupid, but he liked them later.

The ophthalmologist was very nice and patient. He said Ryan's vision is 20/50, but he didn't want to try Ryan's patience by working out a prescription today. He asked if Ryan had been to the pediatric ophthalmologist, and when we told him what happened there, he was understanding and said he could figure out he prescription himself. We have an appointment three weeks hence. He promised Ryan that he wouldn't need drops at that appointment and that he and Ryan would "play with [his] glasses." Ryan psyched about going back because he and Mimi will get to pick out frames together. I have no clue whether or not he'll actually wear the glasses, but we'll get two pairs of glasses and see what happens. Hopefully he'll use them, be able to see more clearly, and enjoy things more.